Jack Mickelson, a civil servant in the Central Office of Information, was rushed to hospital in critical condition following a cardiac arrest brought about by the pressure of a sudden influx of government departmental news that all coincidentally needed an urgent release to the press in the wake of the death of Michael Jackson.

Hundreds of Labour MPs were holding a vigil outside the Chelsea & Westminster hospital waiting for news on the iconic government figure, and on whether updates on their expenses and cancelled multi-million pound contracts — totalling enough to build the O2 fifty times over — had been released.

‘He’s the King of Spin!’ lamented a distraught MP, ‘although having said that, with the government’s current reputation, even us big fans have to admit he hasn’t really done anything much good since the 1990s…’